Many companies are building products that benefit from a connection to a cloud service via the internet. For example, whitegoods manufacturers are connecting appliances like dishwashers and refrigerators to the internet to provide better customer service through remote access to the devices, and TV manufacturers are using internet connectivity to enable content streaming.
Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) is becoming the predominant connectivity technology for consumer connected products as well as many industrial and commercial connected products.
However, connecting these devices to the internet through Wi-Fi is difficult for some consumers; sometimes consumers have trouble entering the credentials like SSID and password accurately, and in many cases the inconvenience of entering Wi-Fi credentials and the dislike of the process prevents customers from buying connected products in first place. However, the model of Wi-Fi requires the Wi-Fi credentials to be put in the device in order to access the local network and the full bandwidth of the internet service. Onboarding a wireless device onto a secure network, such as Wi-Fi can be time consuming and require updates as Wi-Fi credentialing information is changed. This can be time consuming and inconvenient, and result in even more expensive support calls for manufacturers and internet service providers.
It is desirable to have a system, method and apparatus for onboarding wireless devices which is fast, can onboard multiple devices on the secure network with minimal latency, easy to set-up and requires minimal user-intervention. Such a system, method and apparatus will use a provisioning device (such as mobile phone) with which consumers are familiar and provides an increased level of security.